The Spice Boys

About the Book

The Spice Boys traces the strange adventures of a Viking orphan seeking his place in an Irish Sea world controlled by the Norsemen. Britain and Ireland are in the midst of the commercial revolution of the tenth century. Erik Haraldson is King of York; Olaf Sitricson is the King of Dublin. Both cities offer great opportunities—as well as temptations—for a country boy like Bjorn Hroaldson. Bjorn is an accomplished poet and songwriter in a culture that regards poetry as a gift of the high gods—and a talent which is eagerly sought after by the sea lords who pay handsomely for poetic praise. Bjorn is the right person in the right place.

He finds the busy city of York full of ambitious men and beautiful women. Bjorn has just begun his career as a poet royal when he is suddenly expelled from the city for misconduct. He flees to the great Viking city-state of Dublin, where he is offered a job as a mercenary in the private army of Asgerd and Sons, a trading company popularly known as “The Spice Boys.” Dublin is a leader in technology and in the development of global trade operations. But it also shelters vestiges of slavery and state-sponsored terrorism. Bjorn is recruited as an agent for Kovr—the Spice Boys’ intelligence unit—and sent back to York!

Bjorn soon finds himself caught up in the classic conflict between love and loyalty. He seems to be reliving a dark Viking saga as told by the skalds—with his life imitating their art. And he knows that in the sagas good guys usually come in last.

The Spice Boys is the first volume of a Viking trilogy, which revisits some of the familiar (= false) accounts of the medieval past. These are not chronicles but well-focused stories developed from a re-examination of the archives and sites in Norway, Britain, and Ireland.

About the Author

A Midwesterner by birth and an Easterner by education, Jim Jorgen is a master of disguise who at various times has posed as a college professor, a rock n roll impresario, a poet, and a Wall Street jack-of-all-trades. His interest in the Northmen has led him to explore many of the principal Viking sites in Ireland, Britain, Norway, and finally Normandy.